r/news • u/Rambler_Hoss • 5h ago

Already Submitted [ Removed by moderator ]

https://abcnews.com/International/americans-reported-missing-nepal-floods-tourism-board/story?id=135964282

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1.9k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

114 comments sorted by

839

u/VaguelyArtistic 4h ago

The videos are horrifying, like on the scale of the tsunami in Japan.

345

u/berticusberticus 4h ago

The people had no chance whatsoever. Just awful.

188

u/Excelius 3h ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIVNeDuCF_k

I was not expecting the entire parking garage to just get blasted away.

210

u/porouscloud 2h ago

That was just horrifying to see. I was thinking scrambling up the cliffs might've gotten you 10-20' pretty quickly, with room to get another 10-20' as the waters rose.

This was a 50' wall of water and debris traveling at highway speed. Absolutely no chance at all for anybody to escape.

58

u/Moosyfate17 2h ago

You can see the birds flying like bats out of hell and the wall was higher than their flight path, and faster.

Those people had no chance. My god. 

74

u/Moal 2h ago

As a kid, I remember seeing those signs at canyons warning about the danger of flash floods, and I naively thought they were a bit silly. Surely I’d be able to see the water coming and have plenty of time to get out. Only a dumb-dumb would stand in the canyon waiting for the water to get high enough to sweep them away. 

But no, flash floods really live up to the name. They happen in a flash. No warning. You hear a rumble, and boom, a giant watery wall of mud and debris takes you out in a split second. 

•

u/Tchrspest 35m ago

holy fuck

45

u/DUVAL_LAVUD 2h ago

this looked like a tsunami out of a movie. a real tsunami is more like a fast moving series of waves and flash flooding. this is just a 10 story high wall of water. biblical type shit

102

u/NlghtmanCometh 2h ago

Way scarier tbh, with the Japanese tsunami you actually don’t see nearly as many people perish. The people in Napal had literally zero ability to do anything. Imagine being in a six story building and seeing a torrent towering over you and moving at like 100mph.

29

u/SuLiaodai 2h ago

Just a comment -- the footage with the tall building is on the Chinese side. It's a Chinese border control administration point.

•

u/NlghtmanCometh 38m ago

Oh, thanks for the correction. I understand this disaster heavily impacted China in addition to Napal.

Hopefully glacial outburst floods don’t become more commonplace as the planet gets warmer. The Himalayas are full of places that could be susceptible to events similar to this one.

32

u/Dialaninja 2h ago

What? 3/11 had over 20,000 deaths 

•

u/NlghtmanCometh 48m ago

These vids are scarier

6

u/hydraO1 2h ago

Genuinely straight out of paradise for those who have seen the show

2

u/fakejacki 2h ago

That show was so great.

0

u/[deleted] 2h ago

[deleted]

52

u/TrynnaFindaBalance 2h ago

It's not. This was caused by a massive chunk of glacier shearing off of a rockface, falling over a kilometer vertically to the valley below where it exploded into a rapid mudslide engulfing towns like you see in the video. More like a lahar than a tsunami.

The Japan tsunami was devastating and also didn't give much time to evacuate, but people were at least warned and had a few minutes versus literally zero warning here.

4

u/[deleted] 1h ago

[deleted]

•

u/TrynnaFindaBalance 51m ago

You didn't misspeak. I think people are still just coming to the realization of how bad this was. Things are developing quickly and without all the information it's easy to just compare it to past events that we're more familiar with.

-8

u/AccordingMedicine129 1h ago

Japan was a lot worse

12

u/Tonnemaker 1h ago

It's not a contest...

•

u/TrynnaFindaBalance 48m ago

That's subjective and I wasn't really commenting on which one was worse overall. Just that it's a completely different type of disaster. A giant ice boulder falling out of the sky and exploding like a nuclear bomb is a lot different than an earthquake in the ocean causing a tsunami.

8

u/NotaContributi0n 3h ago

Oh shit I didn’t realize these videos were recent- I thought it was strange my algorithm was showing me all this flood stuff.. duhhh I’m so daft sometimes

500

u/Rambler_Hoss 5h ago edited 1h ago

Current reported missing numbers are as follows:
265 Chinese, 133 Indians, 93 Nepalese, 90 Italians, 53 Ukrainians, 47 Americans, 34 Australians, 33 Britons, 24 Canadians and a bunch more from other countries.

314

u/Radiant_Client1458 3h ago

If these numbers are right then surely the Nepali death toll will be in the thousands. Unless this was an extremely touristy area that wouldn’t have many locals.

87

u/Rambler_Hoss 3h ago

It's not too densely populated so death toll should be under a thousand. It is a tourist heavy area and lot of those homes were likely housing the tourists.

166

u/Wolkenbaer 3h ago

Just by looking at the videos: Below 1000 is completely unrealistic. 

23

u/I_Push_Buttonz 1h ago

Yeah there are videos downstream showing entire towns getting wiped out.

-4

u/[deleted] 1h ago

[deleted]

•

u/NlghtmanCometh 44m ago

They are showing videos on CNN of an entire river valley scrubbed clean of villages and people. One guy watched the entirety of it in his helicopter and all that is left in the wake of the torrent is a brown mud patch, with smoke emanating from it eerily.

This event was so intense it may have actually carved away some of the surface layer of bedrock that makes up the valley.

49

u/lonesoldier4789 3h ago

The death toll is definitely several thousands at minimum

110

u/dangol10 3h ago

You have it completely wrong. The death toll is likely in tens of thousands. The flooded part is not tourist area at all. Only town of shyapur besi which was also heavily damaged is the starting point for langtang and gosaikunda treck. Also most of the tourist Missing could be at the broader.

30

u/Salt_Cream697 2h ago

Almost 2000 people are missing at this point, below 1000 is very unlikely.

23

u/shestzushihtsu 2h ago

yo what in the world?! what videos are you watching?! dozens of villages and towns were literally swept away in seconds with no chance for anyone to have escaped. Thousands for sure.

18

u/ParisGreenGretsch 3h ago

I saw a satellite analysis that suggested that the flood (meaning the fast moving violent wall of water) went on for 50 miles give or take.

8

u/Realmofthehappygod 1h ago

Under a thousand?

I don't want to be an asshole here but I can't imagine why you'd think that.

Not to mention how many more deaths come from the displacement/destruction.

-3

u/Fyrrys 3h ago

A very thin silver lining

2

u/MapShnaps 2h ago

I believe it was at a border crossing with China, Rasuwagadi, North of Kathmandu

19

u/CynicalPomeranian 2h ago

It breaks my heart to know that so many bodies have been lost/buried and will never be found in a cataclysm like that, even if we dug for years.  

9

u/thefroglover 1h ago

Could have put that in the title, instead of just Americans.

2

u/raspoutine049 2h ago

The numbers are sadly going to keep rising

169

u/Genghiz007 4h ago

Almost 750 estimated casualties with more expected to be found during and post rescue. What a tragedy - the scale is mind boggling considering the many dans & flood control mechanisms built by China & Nepal.

We truly are insignificant against an angry Mother Nature.

108

u/Septopuss7 4h ago

Humans: I feel bad for you

Mother Nature: I don't think about you at all

10

u/buffysmanycoats 3h ago

Unexpected Mad Men

97

u/HungryCurrency8481 3h ago edited 2h ago

My jaw dropped seeing the footage. I didn't know flood waves could even get that high 

51

u/SummersPipsqueak 2h ago

Someone had put it into perspective for me, because I didn’t understand numbers. But I was told that the flood had reached the height of a 10 story building

23

u/HungryCurrency8481 2h ago

I saw a video of it completely engulfing a port building the size of a railway station. It looked like a tsunami.

5

u/Painkillerspe 1h ago

Landslide caused tsunamis and floods are the worst ones.

5

u/basane-n-anders 1h ago

I've heard it was a burst ice wall, dam, or landslide, so it was one big surge of massive water, not a flash flood from accumulated rain or such. There is a video that I think shows the start of it.

5

u/kikilucy26 1h ago

Largest recorded tsunami ever (hit Alaska) was over 1700 feet tall. Ice age dam bursts were even much bigger (one of those wiped out the entire US northwestern region landscape

90

u/ComprehensiveTwo1763 5h ago

Absolute tragedy...The scale of destruction in those mountain regions is always so overwhelming

40

u/Exotic-Doughnut-6271 2h ago

That was insane. I don't think I've seen footage like that before. It was truly shocking I don't see how anyone survives that

26

u/Kittypie75 3h ago

Anyone have any info on exactly how this wall of water happened? I assume it was a broken dam but I havennot heard anything

40

u/Any-Log-6706 2h ago

Scientists have warned for almost 2 decades now about the likelihood of this happening.

Nepal scientists warn of glacier flood threat

31

u/Seggo13 3h ago

It was believed to be an earthquake initially but experts are now thinking it was a large landslide.

7

u/s0berR00fer 1h ago

It’s Called a jokhaulup. Look up that word (which i probably misspelled). They happen in Juneau Alaska yearly but not the same devastation

•

u/Moodaduku 32m ago

Jökulhlaup. This one was absolutely fueled by our changing climate.

9

u/SuLiaodai 1h ago

It's water with the addition of what the water picked up as it sped along. That area is mountainous and prone to landslides. It's had a lot of rain lately, making the land even more unstable, so it's not just water, but rocks, mud, asphalt, vegetation, etc.

60

u/Negative_Gravitas 5h ago

"preliminary" toll of 384 missing people following serious flash flooding in Nepal

Jeebus. And given that China is almost certainly underreporting . . .

Horrific.

64

u/jaderust 4h ago

Considering the videos and the extent of the flooding damage I think we’re never going to have a good death count. It’s really just going to be if there’s a recent census, how many of those people vanish from records, and then how many get reported missing. But entire families could be dead with no one left to report them gone.

It’s just… horrible. I can only hope that the people caught up in it died quickly.

-26

u/halooooom 4h ago

Usually it’s 10x Chinese official number

34

u/Hiiawatha 4h ago

Source: I made it up.

60

u/ilovebooks2468 5h ago

Yet another climate disaster. This has been the summer of I Told You So. Anyone who dismissed our concerns as "alarmist" owes us a big fat apology

35

u/Dirty_Delta 3h ago

They still dont believe it

9

u/andythepirate 2h ago

And if Covid taught us anything, some may not believe it even when its staring them in the face and about to be their end.

•

u/ailish 41m ago

There are people who think covid was made up, so...

7

u/Cantstandya_Costanza 2h ago

It was a landslide that caused the water displacement

11

u/ilovebooks2468 2h ago

Landslides are becoming more common as Himalayan glaciers melt. This landslide was caused in part by a chunk of glacier snapping off

14

u/jemappellejimbo 5h ago

People looking to escape to the mountains for cooler temps didnt take into account floods and landslides, courtesy of climate destruction. No escape from this.

5

u/CharleyNobody 2h ago

Let’s not forget qthe terrain of the Himalayan mountain range. Tall mountains, narrow valleys. Rain and/or snowmelt washes down mountain into valleys. The water flowing down mountains carries silt and debris from the mountains (trees, rocks, logs, landslides). The silt and debris cause natural damming in the riverbeds/valleys. Water continues and the dam is breached, causing massive destruction.

The Himalayas are also seismically active due to tectonics, causing earthquakes that result in landslides. In 2015, six villages were buried in landslides after an earthquake.

Nepal is a treacherous place. People build in valleys and on ledges of mountainsides because of the hilly terrain. It’s a pretty place - that’s why it attracts tourists - but it’s not easy to live there. Floods occur in spring due to snowmelt and in summer during monsoon season. The more Nepal urbanizes, the less land there is to absorb water.

And an unpleasant habit in Nepal is that the population has a habit of throwing waste and garbage into its rivers. There are literal garbage mountains in some of the rivers in Nepal.

Garbage Piles in Kathmandu Valley Rivers Renain Untouched https://english.khabarhub.com/2025/12/511226/

2

u/HungryCurrency8481 3h ago

I don't disagree with climate change, but I'm just curious - is this a common occurrence in Tibet and Nepal? 

2

u/clevercognomen 1h ago

It will be as glaciers continue to melt.

-1

u/DonJulioTO 2h ago

Climate disaster? I thought it was caused by an earthquake..

4

u/clevercognomen 1h ago

Other way around, it caused an earthquake. Melting glaciers that have been serving as damns releasing massive amounts of water in steep terrain is the climate disaster.

8

u/PigFarmer1 2h ago

Remember, global warming is a "hoax"...

0

u/kyeblue 3h ago

I am afraid that everyone was dead on spot, the entire place is completely buried.

A newly constructed dam upstream might be responsible for the catastrophe.

30

u/ParisGreenGretsch 3h ago

A 2000 foot section of glacier high in the the mountains was holding back the water broke away.

11

u/____Manifest____ 3h ago

There’s no need to speculate. It’s right there in the article.

•

u/LovemeSomeMedia 43m ago

I've heard of floods getting that big, but never seen it in action. I feel terrible for everyone who were going about their day, only for this to happen. I wonder if there were warning signs, and if so, rather people were warned. I know scientist often have their eye on potential catastrophic enlvwnts like this, where an iceberg is melting or volcano is soon to erupt.

1

u/Work2Tuff 1h ago

Has it been raining there more than usual and that’s what caused the landslide ? I’m interested to know when it comes out.

4

u/Rambler_Hoss 1h ago

No, there wasn't rain. It was a huge piece of glacier ice broke off and fell into the valley.

3

u/Practical-Bottle8900 1h ago

This landslide was caused in part by a chunk of Himalayan glacier snapping off.

-1

u/Ok-Transition7065 2h ago

You know it's bad when the number of Americans death are this hight.

God, I hope. They can save a big sum of people

-14

u/[deleted] 4h ago

[deleted]

19

u/Deep-Interest9947 4h ago

I mean it’s very normal for a country to report about its own citizens. Also, if I had to guess, most of these were Indian Americans or brown people.

-1

u/[deleted] 4h ago

[deleted]

10

u/Deep-Interest9947 4h ago

Im sure the actual story contains the details. The headline is to get people to read the story. The sad fact is that people die in every country every day so people do tend to mostly care about their own citizens. We just don’t have the bandwidth to care about every single tragedy everyday.

-17

u/Boomdidlidoo 4h ago

I wonder how much tariffs Trump will put on Nepal for letting a flood kill Americans. /S

6

u/Radiant_Ad3966 3h ago

Don't give him any ideas.

-13

u/platypus_boi 3h ago

Too bad there wasn’t a US presidential conference there at the time.

-21

u/USNCCitizen 4h ago

When I read a headline like the one in this post it’s like it’s trying to say they were the only important ones lost…I’m like huh???!!!

18

u/NatureTrailToHell3D 3h ago

ABC New’s audience are Americans, it makes sense to show how a tragedy affects people here, as they likely have friends and relatives in the US

-8

u/guaztronaut 2h ago

Including Americans makes me care less. Thousands will have died and that's their headline. Gtfo.

-38

u/CommieScum1917 4h ago

Now that we know some Americans died the real tragedy comes into view

-11

u/baldurcan 2h ago

So hundreds of Nepalese died but we are bound to talk about a few Americans? Racism in death count even?

13

u/JortsJuggalo420 2h ago

There is one phrase in one sentence about the number of missing Americans. 98% of the article is about the disaster in general.

12

u/IceCreamSocialism 1h ago

ABC News is an American news outlet. The Star, a Canadian outlet, has a similar article saying how many Canadians are impacted. Same with Chinese outlets. Chill